Beg For More

YOU BELONG TO ME

Blaze

I moved her into that townhouse by the weekend. She'd stayed at Opal's to get some time in with the kids. Her father wasn't home when we got all of her belongings out of there.We even grabbed all of the kid's things.

She was also able to get to her library job, the newspaper and yearbook meetings and I wrapped up a few maintenance tasks before Friday night.

The kids were incredibly happy to see Sapphire, though. Opal was disgusted at what her father had done to her little sister.

"Thank you for taking care of her," Opal told me as we watched Sapphire read a book to Lily.

"She's my girl," I told her.

"Make sure she does come back and see these kids, Blaze," Opal begged, "She deserves a life , but they will miss her."

"How long has it been like this?"

"On and off for years," Opal sighed, folding her arms in a protective caress around herself, "When Ruby gets on a bender, she's gone for days or weeks. Dad and Ruby are like peas and carrots, and still can't stand each other. The three of us should have just come together to take on the task, maybe get a place away from Dad, but he knows that their father will come and take them. That's his revenge if we do anything." She sighed, "I shouldn't be trying to excuse this. I should be protecting my sisters."

"I've got Sapphire so don't worry about her,"I told Opal.

I wasn't surprised at how much of an asshole Sapphire's dad was. I watched Sapphire for a good while, playing with the kids and tending to their needs. She was definitely going to be a good mother one day. Her future kids would be very lucky to have her as their mom.

"Mr. Blaze?" I felt a tug on my pants, "Mr. Blaze?!"

I looked down. It was Gage. He had a cape on, "Can you play superheroes with me?"

Opal tried to shoo him away, "Don't bother Blaze, honey."

"No, it's OK,"I chuckled, "I haven't played superheroes in years."

He'd handed me a plastic sword and shield and I ran after him, pretending like I was the villain. Pretty soon, all of the kids were in on it, including Lily.

Sapphire looked over at me just then and smiled. I might have been pretending to be a villain to these kids, but I was about to play superhero to my girl.

She'd seen the townhouse the day after I called Mom. It was already furnished and cleaned once a week. Mom took the effort to have it cleaned again just in case. We'd met my Mother in the parking lot and she took one look at us and cried. I'm sure we looked horrible.

"Sapphire, it's been so long since I've seen you!" She said, hugging Spooks, "You're so grown up now. Such a beautiful girl. Blaze is very lucky to have you."

She looked uncomfortable after my Mom said that, but piped up, "I'm very lucky to have him, Miss Carla."

"Oh, you're old enough now to just call me Carla, dear," My Mom lead us around the place as Sapphire held my hand. I loved watching her eyes light up with the turn of every corner.

"You have neighbors but they live in the middle townhouse over there on the other side. They're an older couple, sweet as can be," Mom rambled on as Sapphire and I glimpsed each other and smiled, "This townhouse complex is very new so you won't have any neighbors for a while. We're a gated area, as you already know. The office is the only thing open 24 hours a day and the gym is for residents only so you'll get a key. I wanted to run this sort of like an apartment complex to take the load off of our resident's shoulders."